it's buddha day tomorrow in saigon. a no-work day for everyone. that's a blessing, and a surprise one, at that. thank you buddha. extra rest is very much welcome.
we just wrapped up day six of our thirty-day film shoot tonight. 29 scenes finished overall from days one to six. and tomorrow, despite the so-called holiday, there's still a meeting at 2 pm. supposedly to discuss postproduction. ngayon lang ako nakarinig ng postproduction meeting between prod and postprod people (wala kasing ganun sa pinanggalingan ko e), and so early on in the production phase at that. haha. i wonder what it's gonna be about. tonight at packup the director was asking me about some technical question about DI (digital...inscription? interlock? in-coding? i-wan!). i just stood there, trying hard not to let the cluelessness in my face show. but the thought bubble on me read somethin like: wtf are you talking about? me, third world country. continuity supervisors in philippines, no know about DI and stuff. continuity supervisors in the pinas don't get that far into the postproduction process. at the most, we sit through dubbings of the artistas. which is just fine with me. ehehe. less work on my part. but lookie here, hindi lang pala hanggang doon ang sakop ng D&R ng mga script cont dito. goes to show how much more there is to learn.
getting everything down on paper is probably the best discipline i've learned thus far. apparently importante yun sa kanila dito. and the editor actually refers to it pag umupo na sya para pagtagni-tagniin ang pelikula. sa pinas kasi hindi naman din ganon ka-religious ang mga continuity supervisors sa pag-take down ng mga technical details (ie lens/filters used, aperture/distance of the camera, etc). either that, or it was just me. haha!
pero kung di man ma-paperwork ang mga script continuity supervisors sa pinas, at least kaya nilang maging katulong ng assistant director (the norm in most foreign productions is that continuity supervisors stick to their sole duty, i.e. continuity and note-taking for editing). multi-tasking on the legwork is what we've been trained to do. old-style pelikula-making. so now i'm trying my best to marry both worlds. kasi yung AD trained sa pinoy style pero yung mga producers at director, trained sa western/viet style. at dahil superiors ko silang lahat, sundin na lang natin ang mga trip nila. go with the flow, kumbaga. hehe. chill!
not that i'm bothered by it. nakakapagod nga lang pag parit-parito ka sa pag-check kung bihis na ang artista mo and at the same time kelangan tutukan ang direktor mo in case kailanganin nya ng script. tapos syempre after every take kelangan tanungin mo yung cameraman tungkol mga technical details for paperwork, on top of taking photo stills of the set and costume at the end of each take. at tsaka, oo nga pala, continuity ng mga shots, action ng artista, at eksena according to the script. left hand o right hand? at syempre, the end of the day (pero actually nagagawa ko na lang to at the end of each work week), submit ka ng malinis na kopya ng edit logs for postproduction, pati progress report. heehee. awrayt!
i still think of home everyday. the homesickness blues have gone away but the day wouldn't be complete without thoughts of home. but i'm here to work. so work, mushy sentimentalist beeyatch. forget your cat. forget your family. forget videoke. forget sinigang na baboy. forget The Face. most probably your face is only a vague memory to him by now.
hay, the Face. a fellow Pinoy here thinks that i'm into those squeaky-clean, good boy types. of course he's basing it on the pictures on my digicam. haha. pano kasi, barubal naman tong kaibigan kong Pinoy dito--the anything-in-a-skirt archetype i've come to hate since birth. other than that, though, he's a nice guy. one of my closest friends here in saigon, if not the closest. kahit mag-away/magkabwisitan kami, after a while friends kami uli. if we were in the philippines it would've been a different case, but we're fellow pinoys in a foreign place--sa tore ni babel, people of the same mother tongues flock together.
i will always have the Name and the Face to use as my self-defense weapon. the Face i don't use that much anymore (nagi-guilty ako e, kasi wala naman talagang katotohanan. hehe), but I "Name"-drop nearly everyday. awww. now they think i'm so pathetically in lurve. interesting plot point, eh. life is bland without those little white lies every once in a while.
i was anything but attracted to this Pinoy fellow, but today it was different, somehow. weird. maybe it was the circumstances, maybe it was familiarity. but it was a bit scary. so i asked for some kind of a sign today. haha. cheesy. something connected to either The Name or The Face, to let me know that i should know better not to let my guard down with the wrong persons. and the sign had better come tonight.
and what do you know, someone might just have saved me by sending a friendster message. i got it tonight. mas masaya siguro if it had come from The Face, but The Name was the second best option. at least i got the sign that i needed.
i was glad, but it was nothing personal. it wasn't the person, anyway. it was the sign. the warning that i should stay away from what's gonna be bad for me. i don't really trust The Name that fully as well. he recycles flatteries from past pamemechays. i'll bet he's even using the same recycled lines on someone else now as i write. heehaw.
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